How To Harness Social Responsibility To Reduce Employee Turnover

Turning life experience into a business is what entrepreneurship is all about. Saumya Bhatnagar and her long-time friend, Gaurav Bhattacharya turned their experiences with gender bias and the need for a helping hand into an app that has garnered investment from Mucker Capital for their company, Involve. Mucker invests in seed and “pre-seed” stage companies building defensible and scalable businesses in Internet software, services and media.

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Their business can help other businesses deal with a growing problem: the nomadic nature of millennials, who will soon make up the vast majority of the workforce. Millennials are well-known for job-hopping but they are also known for their desire to be valued and to do good. That’s where Involve comes in. It allows your employees to find meaningful volunteer work while increasing their loyalty to your company.

The foundation for Involve was laid in India, where Saumya -- and her parents -- experienced gender bias. Alas, they had no son but they did have and support her. Despite their misgivings, her parents respected her wish to attend coding school and not become a doctor like the rest of the family. Gaurav, on the other hand, came from a background that couldn’t afford to send him to coding school. He was taught by volunteers through a corporate program.

Fast forward: The two met in high school, started a company, sold it. Separately, they moved to the U.S. but stayed in touch.

Saumya is driven to make the world a better place. Social responsibility is mandated in India, yet Saumya felt the United States made more of a social impact with their programs.

Having personally benefited by learning to code through a corporate social responsibility program, Gaurav was surprised to find out that these volunteer programs were not being used very much by corporations in the United States. After some research, he discovered the problem: these programs were hard to manage. He also saw an opportunity to provide a solution to the high employee turnover rates among millennials. He asked Bhatnagar to join, as Involve's CTO.

Millennials now make up one-third of the American workforce, according to Pew. By 2025, millennials will represent a massive 75% of the American workforce. They are also the most likely generation to job hop. According to Gallup, 60% of millennials are open to a new job opportunity and 21% changed jobs in 2016. Job turnover costs the U.S. $30.5 billion each year.

How do you encourage millennials (and other age groups) to stay put in their jobs? Millennials prefer corporations that are socially responsible. They also need to feel valued and that they are an important part of the company. Using their skills to help the causes they care about is one way to generate loyalty.

Using Involve’s software as service platform, employees can find causes they care about and volunteer their skills. It’s the Match.com for volunteers and causes. For Saumya, the cause is gender bias and she directs her volunteer efforts there.

How will you support the causes you care about?

I am president of Ventureneer, a digital media and market research company that helps corporations reach small businesses through thought leadership. My book, Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One, provides women entrepreneurs practical advice for overcom...